Ethics of Person PDF

Ethics of Person The Anthropological Bases of Ethics Prepared by: Zyra F. Lentija Our humanity... What about it? The need to see the rightness and wrongness of human action has a lot to do with the person’s humanity. What does this humanity signify? We can get to know what a human person is by co...

Ethics of Person The Anthropological Bases of Ethics Prepared by: Zyra F. Lentija Our humanity... What about it? The need to see the rightness and wrongness of human action has a lot to do with the person’s humanity. What does this humanity signify? We can get to know what a human person is by contrasting him/her with non- persons.  1. The Human Person: As Revealed in Moral Experience Moral experience gives us a good ground for the understanding of persons. This is an idea reflected carefully upon and expounded by Karol Wojtyla (a.k.a. Pope John Paul II) in his work Acting Person. Experience shows us how to understand the person and morality. The moral experiences of person, and a person’s understanding of his own experiences sheds light on his being as a person and on morality as such. 2. The Selfhood of Human Persons Persona est individua substantia naturae rationalis (person is an individual substance of a rational nature.) This classic definition of Boethius contains the essentials in understanding human dignity. The human person, by virtue of his individuality and rationality, is a being who is his own and does not belong to another. This is succinctly expressed in the classic definition of Roman Law for the person: persona est sui iuris et alteri incommunicabilis.  In the following ethical situations below, consider the way persons are treated: A prostitute sells herself to earn a living; the customer in turn hires her for his own 3. Ethical experience as a rich gratification field of discovery and An innocent person is framed, accused, condemned and consequently punished for a crime in order to appease a greater majority understanding of what the that’s seeking to redress a grievance human person is. To breed humans as we do animals, discarding the non-excellent, non-exemplary specimens and ignoring defective, inferior specimen Based on the ethical situations above, we raise the following questions: Ethically speaking, prostitution is tantamount to a woman throwing away her birthright as a person. Therefore, what must the personhood of a woman be? If framing an innocent man violates him as a person, what does this tell us about the being of a person? Based on the ethical situations above, we raise the following questions: Isn’t there some contradiction in the idea of a “defective human person”? What is the truth about human persons that is not recognized when they are treated as specimens? What do we understand about persons when we see slavery as radically depersonalizing?  4. 4 formulations of person as selfhood by J. Crosby: Persons are ends in Persons are themselves and never incommunicably their mere instrumental own and never mere means. specimens. Persons are wholes of Each person belongs to their own and never himself and not to any mere parts. other.  A person stands in himself (exist in some way for his own sake; strongly anchored in himself) that if he exists as a mere instrument for some service outside himself, however noble or greatly beneficial, he is violated as a person. Kant says that a person is an end in himself and not a mere instrumental means.  5. The person is a subject of rights What are specific rights? They are the fundamental rights of a person as person and not those acquired by contract or conferred by law. An important ground for rights of a human person is a person’s belonging to himself. Violation of fundamental rights Violation of fundamental rights involves, among other things, disposing what belongs intrinsically to another and this may be likened to a theft of a person’s very being. Comparison  6. The selfhood and transcendence of persons The four statements about the person (end not instrumental means; whole not mere part; incommunicable not specimen; owns himself and is not owned by another) point to the selfhood and solitude of the person. Solitude is NOT the experience of solitary life but being set off from everything other than himself. In other words, a person is himself and not another.  A person is a substance independent of any other. This is the essence of selfhood. A definition of person which is even closer to selfhood and solitude is that which is given by Roman law: persona est sui iuris et alteri incommunicabilis (a person is his own being and does not share the being of another).  7. The value of human persons Even more than respect, we can love persons. In the self, a recognition of Every person has dignity but the concreteness and only individual concrete individuality of the person— persons are loved (in the and hence the selfhood of proper sense): I am capable of persons—leads to recognition recognizing the dignity of of the infinite value of that every person whom I meet and person. of showing him or her respect, but I am capable of recognizing the unique We are then bound to respect personal lovableness of each person. persons and I am capable of loving them.  8. Happiness and the end of the human person Happiness is an end. All our striving and all human living is for a purpose. Aristotle rightly concludes that if there is any end that every human being directs himself invariably, that would be happiness. What does happiness consist in? This is the most logical question which follows from the realization that every human person wants to be happy. St. Thomas asks this question as well in his Summa Theologiae. Thank You For Your Attention